On Jul 18, 2008, at 6:41 PM, Michael Ash wrote:
On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Andy Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Jul 18, 2008, at 3:49 PM, Michael Ash wrote:
The better term already exists: "own". As in, "you own the return
value" or "you do not own the return value". This tells you
everything
you need to know.
Well, as I said I don't agree with the connotations of "own."
I find that objection to be rather odd. Your objections are all corner
cases, or things where the English usage doesn't *quite* line up with
the programming usage.
We'll just have to disagree on how odd the objections are.
Corner case or not, we must understand that retains, wherever they
occur, must be balanced with releases. Therefore we must understand
that the same object can "own" another object multiple times -- it
happens all the time. In fact, at the time you take ownership of
something, you have no idea how many times you've owned it already.
IMO this is not mere hair-splitting. It blows away the normal English
concept of ownership, which is binary: you as an individual either own
something or you don't.
This is why I never call the retain count a reference count, although
it seems like the two terms have become interchangeable lately (I
could swear that once upon a time the distinction mattered).
Reference counts are about ownership; retain counts are about
bookkeeping.
As for the "has-a" connotation, I suggest you ask any non-Cocoa
developer what they think it means for one object to own another.
But you have no problem with "autoreleased"
even though it is just plain wrong.
Oh, I have a problem with it now -- see my more recent replies.
--Andy
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